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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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To 



MOSS' HISTORICAL MAP, 

SHOWING THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SINCE JULY 13, 1787, 

Illustrate "THB STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS," 

By WILLIAM F\ MOSS, CHICAGO. 



EX PLANATORY. — II,;ft vy Mack lines show the boundaries of dif- 
ferent DWlrioni li" Following are also 

TREAT! LIHSTES. 

1st. Treaty with Great Britain, 1788 Prom the Atlantic Ocean on east 
line of Maine, north and west to the Lake of the Woods, aud thence south 
along the Mississippi Uiver to Latitude 81°, (Florida became our south and 
the Atlantic Ocean ouz east boundary under this treaty.) 

2nd. Treat y with Spain, 17!>r>. From Mississippi Uiver at Latitude 31 , 
east to thr Atlantic Ocean. 

8rd, Treaty with Spain, 181°. and Treaty with Mexico, 1838. From the 
Gulf of Mexico on west line of Louisiana, north and west, to the Pacific 



Ocean, on north line of California. (The Spanish treaty was not signed by 
the King of Spain till 1820.) 

4th. Treaties with Great Britain 1818 and 1842. From the Lake of the 
Woods west to the Rocky Mountains along Latitude 40 , and Treaty of 184(1. 
from the Rocky Mountains on 49° to the Pacific Ocean. 

5th. Treaty with Mexico, 1848. This line ran from the Gulf of Mexico 
at the mouth of the Rio Grande up that river to the south line of New Mexico, 
thence west to the east branch of the Gila River, thence down that River to 
the north line of Lower California and thence west to the Pacific. 

By the treaty of 1853, what is known as the Gadsden Purehase was made, 
lying Bouth of the Gila River and the partially changed line shown on the 
map became the boundary. 



NOTE.~France gave us no specified boundary but as she had claimed 
the whole Valley of the Mississippi by right of original discovery of the 
river and as she had ceded that part of her claim lying east of the river, e\ 
cept south of 31 , to England in 1763. (who ceded it to us in 178:1), the balance 
of her claim became ours by the Louisiaua Purchase, and in the absence of 
specified metes and bounds the watersheds around the valley were the natural 
and rightful boundary. 

I have marked the watersheds both in the north and in the south; the 
continuous line connecting them will represent the west watershed boundary. 
The whole country between these and the Mississippi River and what France 
had retained east of the river and south of 31 ' became ours by the Louisiana 
Purchase. 




DIVISIONS. 

O.ODjDomaJn, 1788 1808 see pages 5-io I •' 2." Second Enlargement, 1820, Florida I'm, | " 4." Fourth Enlargement, 1845-1853. Texas and M< xi< bo Purcham ree pa K < 

1. • First Enlargement, 1808, Louisiana Purehase... " 10 13 | " 8." Third Enlargement, 1788-1848, the Oregon Country, ' U 16 »«6.» Fifth Enlargement, 1887, Alaska Purehase ■• 

NOTE.— The figures in each Slate show the real when it became a State. Only Towns. Riven, etc.. mentioned in the book are named on this map. 

OowTlghl (867, \Vii.liak P. Hon*. Chicago. 



Keep thi$ Map <>;>cn for reference when reading this look 



M 

SHOWING THE TERRE 



To Illustrate 



a 



RS," 



EXPLANATORY. - Heavy black lines show the bound as sne had clairne 
ferent Divisions. The following are also I discovery of tfa 

TBEATT LINES. \££$Z2 

1st. Treaty with Great Britain, 1783. From the Atlantic Oj n the absence c 
line of Maine, north and west to the Lake of the Woods, and ^v were the natur: 

uth; th 
undar] 

Franc 
misiac 



■l.s 



MOSS' HOME AND SCHOOL LIBRARY. BOOK I. 



The Story of a Hundred Years, 



OR 



THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH 



OF THE 



United States of America 

SINCE THE ORGANIZATION 

OF 

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY, 

JULY 13th, 1787. 



u 



By WILLIAM P. MOSS. A 




LONRIR PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

158 and 160 S. Clark St., Chicago. 
1887. 



, c \^- 



INTRODUCTION. 



Wednesday, July 13, 1887, is just one hundred years since the Con- 
gress of the United States of America organized its first territory and 
named it " The Territory Northwest of the Ohio River." 

How little they who organized this Territory, thought that in one 
hundred years to a day, near midway of that vast unbroken wilderness, 
there would be a city of seven hundred and fifty thousand people, and that 
in it there would be in session, a convention of Teachers numbering several 
thousands, gathered from a common country whose extent was from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. 

This little Book (telling briefly the story of the marvelous growth of 
our country during this one hundred years, together with its causes) is 
respectfully commended to the educators of our nation, whether in the 
home or school, or pulpit, or editorial chair. 



Copyright, 1887, 
By WM. P. MOSS, 

CHICAGO. 

All Rights Reserved. 



PRESS OF 

Hack &. Anderson, 
CHICAGO. 



OUR TERRITORIAL GROWTH IN 



ONE HUNDRED YEARS 



AND ITS CAUSES. 



One Hundred Years! How long it seems when we 
endeavor to think of it by itself. But when we take up the 
daily paper and read, as we frequently do, of persons who 
have gone beyond that period in life, and then think that one 
hundred years ago that old man or that old woman was a little 
child climbing on its father's knee, as your child did to-day, it 
brings that which in the abstract seemed so long a period down 
to our comprehension, and makes the one hundred years after 
all to be but comparatively a short space of time. 

As it is one hundred years since the Congress of the United 
States of America, on July 13, 1787, organized its first terri- 
tory, "The Territory Northwest of the Ohio Biver", I will start 
with that organization as the initial point of our National 
growth and show, as briefly as possible, not only its causes but 
its successive steps in the ten decades which are closing. Every 



4 T/ie Historic Fact. 

lover of his country should have outlined in his mind, at least, 
a general knowledge of its brief history; yet how few have 
even this. They are sure we had a Revolutionary War, 
and a War of 1812, and a Mexican War, and lately a Civil 
War between the North and the South; and they carry in 
their minds a few facts in relation to these several wars; but 
beyond these the great majority know simply nothing of our 
history. It is not so much the fault of the people as it is of 
those who have written our lesser Histories, which are the only 
ones coming into the hands of the generality of our people. 
The authors of some of these books have not recognized, as fully 
as they should have done, that History is a record of facts, 
with their causes, great and small, showing either the pro- 
gress or the decay of nations. War is but a single expres- 
sion of a pre-existing fact or facts, and not, as they seem to 
make it, the main fact of history. 

The Historic Fact, which I propose we examine together, 
is our Territorial Growth in the century just closing, and its 
Causes. Those who follow me closely will, I think, become 
interested in other great Facts of our marvelous history and 
so form a relish for their study. 



Our Original Domain. 



OUR ORIGINAL DOMAIN. 

(820,680 Square Miles.) 

In 1783, at the close of the Revolution, the United States 
were but thirteen in number, all lying on the Atlantic slope of 
the Continent. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina and Georgia. Several of these States had had, while 
English Colonies, claims more or less conflicting, under royal 
grants, to lands beyond their governmental boundaries. France 
also, by rights of discovery and partial occupation, claimed the 
whole of the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers. 
Her claims extended north from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
Great Lakes, Avhile those of the English Colonies extended 
from the Atlantic west over the same territory to the Pacific 
Ocean. A few years before our Revolution, in the year 1763, 
France, at the close of a bloody war, ceded to England all of 
her territory east of the midchannel of the Mississippi, from 
latitude 31° to the source of the river. In our treaty of 1783 
with England, she ceded to us all this territory and defined our 
northern boundary as extending from the Mississippi to the 
northwest point of the Lake of the Woods, where it joined our 
boundary running east to the line separating Maine from New 
Brunswick. At this boundary junction in the Lake of the 
Woods is a peninsula belonging to Minnesota, though jutting 



6 Our Original Domain. 

out from Manitoba, which came to us under this treaty, though 
defined more clearly in the treaties of 1818 and 1842. At the 
close of the Kevolution our bounds therefore were as follows: 
From the Atlantic west to the mid-channel of the Mississippi, 
and from British America south to the Florida line at 31° of 
north latitude. 

WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE THIRTEEN STATES 

were what are now Maine, Vermont, District of Columbia, 
Kentucky and West Virginia. The District of Columbia as 
it now is, was ceded in 1790 by Maryland to the United States 
for its seat of government: Maine had been since 1652 a Dis- 
trict of Massachusetts; it became a State in 1820. Vermont 
had been claimed both by New Hampshire and New York, but 
in 1777 it had asserted its independence and in 1791 became 
a State. Kentucky, a district of Virginia, arrived at state- 
hood in 1792, while West Virginia, which had always been 
an integral part of Virginia, in 1863, during the late Civil 
War, became an independent State. 

OUR DOMAIN BEYOND THE LIMITS OF THE THIRTEEN STATES. 

At the close of the Revolution most of the States surrend- 
ered to the General Government their colonial charter claims to 
the lands west of them. On the 13th day of July, 1787, the 
celebrated Ordinance passed Congress, organizing 

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 

This was several months before the adoption of the Consti- 
tution, and nearly two years before the inauguration of our first 
President, George Washington. The Northwest Territory 



Our Original Domain. 1 

covered what is now Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wis- 
consin and that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River, 
and was nearly one third of our whole domain. By provis- 
ions of this ordinance, not less than three nor more than five 
States, whose boundaries were specified, were to be made from 
this Territory, and slavery vjas to be forever excluded from them. 
If you will take a United States map of the present time, 
and extend with a pencil the east boundary line of Illinois and 
that of Indiana north till they touch the boundary line in Lake 
Superior separating the United States from Canada, you will 
then see what ground Ohio, Indiana and Illinois would each 
have covered had there been but three States formed out of the 
Northwest Territory. Xow draw a line due east and west from 
the south end of Lake Michigan across these three States, and 
you will see what territory would have been left north of this 
line for the formation of one or two other States. If there had 
been but the three States, then St. Paul and Milwaukee as 
well as Chicago would have added to the wealth and fame of 
Illinois; and Detroit as well as Cincinnati to that of Ohio. 
The moving of this east and west line farther north in the case 
of Illinois, and the subsequent making of the St. Croix river a 
part of the boundary between Wisconsin and Minnesota, took 
both St. Paul and Chicago out of what became Wisconsin, and 
also gave to Minnesota its frontage on Lake Superior. That 
east and west line would have left Illinois and Indiana with- 
out a lake front, and would have given but little to Ohio, 
for what is known as the " Western Reserve," lying along 
Lake Erie, with the parallel of 41° as its south boundary, and 



8 Our Original Domain. 

extending 120 miles west from the Pennsylvania line, was still 
held by Connecticut under its old charter claim, and it was not 
till 1800 that she surrendered its jurisdiction to the United 
States. To give these States lake privileges it was necessary 
to do what was done when they were severally admitted to the 
Union; the line was moved farther north. 

These proposed divisions show how ignorant our fathers 
were of the vast wilderness which had so lately fallen into their 
possession. But little surveying had been done in the west, 
and the maps were mere guesses made from the rude draw- 
ings of voyageurs and adventurers. . Compare the then maps in 
latitude and longitude, position of rivers, lakes, etc. , with the 
maps of to-day, and this ignorance is plainly seen. On maps of 
the last century the Mississippi river is represented as rising 
far to the northwest of where it really does. In the treaty of 
1783, by which England ceded to us our country, the boundary 
line was to run "Due west from the most northwestern point 
of the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi river." If 
river was where they supposed it to be, the city of 
Winnipeg, Manitoba, would be very near to the Minnesota 
line. 

Let me here refer to the wonderful growth in population 
of "The Northwest Territory" in the one hundred years just 
closing. What better illustration can be given than St. Paul, 
the youngest of her great cities, which to-day has eight to ten 
times the population the whole Territory had at its organization. 
Yet at that time, and for several decades after, the vast region 



Our Original Domain. 9 

around St. Paul was almost a terra incognita* Again, three 
years after the organization of the Territory, by the census of 
1790, the population of the whole United States, was but 
3,929,526. Seven years ago, by the census of 1880, the popu- 
lation within the limits of the old Northwest Territory alone 
(leaving out that portion in Minnesota and taking the whole of 
,Ohio,) was 11,207,564. Add to this the probable increase in 
the last seven years, and the probable population of the Min- 
nesota section, and I think I am safe in saying that in this cen- 
tennial year there are three and one-half times the number of in- 
habitants within the bounds of the old Territory that were in 
the whole United States when, on the 13th day of July, 17S7, 
the Northwest Territory was organized. If from a few thous- 
ands in the short space of one hundred years the population 
has grown to so many millions, what will it become by the close 
of another century ? Or who can tell how many of her even 
now great cities will number their inhabitants by the million ? 

THE SOUTHWEST AND MISSISSIPPI TERRITORIES. 

In 1790 North Carolina ceded her claim to the country 
west of her, and it was organized as "The Territory Southwest 
of the Ohio River. " In 1796 it became the State of Tennessee. 
Georgia claimed the country west of her to the Mississippi, but 
the General Government did not admit the claim, at least to the 

* In 1887 the larger Cities of "The Northwest Territory," Cincinnati, 
Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and St. Paul, individually exceed in 
population Jhe census returns for 1790 of several of the individual States; 
while Chicago equals even Virginia, which was then the most populous 
of them all. 



10 How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 

southern part, and in 1798 organized that as the Mississippi 
Territory. Its south boundary was latitude 31°, which sepa- 
rated it from West Florida, and its north boundary a line drawn 
from the Mississippi at the mouth of the Yazoo river east to 
the Chattahooche river. This line started from near where 
is now Yicksburg, and crossed about where is Montgomery, 
Alabama. The United States claimed that up to the Yazoo line 
the country had been a part of West Florida, and that it had 
been ceded by France to England with other territory in 1763, 
and by that Government to ours in 1783, and so never had 
been included in Georgia. In 1800 Georgia surrendered all 
her claims west of the Chattahooche river, and the Mississippi 
Territory was extended north to the Tennessee line. In 1817 
the State of Mississippi was formed from the western part of 
this Territory, and the eastern part became Alabama Territory, 
which in 1819 was admitted as a State. 



HOW OUR DOMAIN WAS ENLARGED. 



FIRST ENLARGEMENT, THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 

(930,928 Square Miles.) 
In the year 1803, by the payment of $15,000,000, we unex- 
pectedly secured from France her Province of Louisiana. This 
region had originally belonged to France, but in the year 
1763 she had ceded it to Spain, who in 1800 by a secret treaty 
had retroceded it to France, though the latter Government did 
not actually take possession of it till she turned it over to 



How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 11 

us. This act took place at New Orleans, and was so inter- 
esting that I think you will pardon me for stopping briefly to 
allude to it. The preliminary arrangements had been going on 
for several days, and on the 20th day of December, 1803, the 
formal, surrender by the French was made. At sunrise the 
French flag was raised to the summit of the flag staff in the 
•public square, indicating that France was now in possession of 
the Province. At noon the United States Commissioners at the 
head of the American troops entered the city and received from 
the French authorities the keys of the city, emblematic of the 
formal delivery of Louisiana to the United States. Soon after 
the tri-colored flag of France slowly descended, meeting the 
rising flag of the United States at half mast. After a few 
moments pause the French flag descended to the ground, and 
the American flag rose to the top of the flag staff amid the roar 
of artillery, the blare of martial music and the vociferous cheer- 
ing of the American people. A very full account of this inter- 
esting ceremony can be found in Spencer's United States, Yol. 
3, pages 44-5. 

I stated above that we had unexpectedly secured this 
Province, The way was as follows: we had difficulty with 
the Spanish authorities at New Orleans; for they had re- 
peatedly violated our treaty rights and had closed the outlet 
of the river to us. We were on the point of forcing our way 
through to the Gulf of Mexico by an act of war, when better 
counsel prevailed, and President Jefferson appointed Robert 
R. Livingston, our Minister to France, and James Monroe, 
Commissioners to negotiate with France for the purchase of 



12 How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 

the island and city of New Orleans, that we might have an un- 
interrupted outlet through our own territory, by the Mississippi 
river, to the Gulf of Mexico. When they made their mission 
known, Napoleon offered them the whole Province. Finding 
he was in earnest, and not as they first supposed merely ban- 
tering, they negotiated a treaty which was speedily accepted by 
our Government, and the whole Louisiana Province passed 
into our possession. The reason why Napoleon made us this 
splendid offer was because he was preparing for war with Eng- 
land and needed the money, and he knew if Louisiana were 
not transferred to us, England with her ships of war, even then 
in the Gulf of Mexico, would have quickly taken New Orleans 
and controlled the whole Province. 

This purchase carried our western boundary from the mid- 
channel of the Mississippi river to the water-shed of the Rocky 
Mountains, and gave into our possession the whole valley of 
the Mississippi and its branches. This Province included what 
is now Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota (west 
of the river), Dakota, Montana (larger part), Wyoming (larger 
part), Colorado (in part), Nebraska, Kansas (except southwest 
corner), and the Indian Territory (except the Pan Handle), 
with what are now the great cities of New Orleans, St. Louis, 
Kansas City, Denver, Omaha and Minneapolis. 

This purchase not only gave our western people a free 
outlet to the sea and the markets of the world, but it removed 
from our whole western border a foreign and warlike power. 
The rapid increase in population which immediately followed, 
showed the wisdom of this immense and costly purchase on the 



How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 13 

part of our young and impoverished Nation. When we look 
at this vast tract, which at the time of its cession to us had but 
80,000 inhabitants, more than half of whom were slaves, peopled 
as it is now by millions of happy people, and capable of sup- 
porting millions upon millions more, we cannot but recognize 
the guiding hand of that good Providence which made it pos- 
sible to obtain it, in a manner so strange and unexpected to us. 

SECOND ENLARGEMENT, THE FLORIDA PURCHASE. 

(59,720 Square Miles.) 

In the year 1820, after a negotiation of about two years, the 
Spanish Government ratified a treaty with the United States 
by which, for the sum of $5,000,000, the Floridas were ceded to 
us. The country east of the Appalachicola river had been 
known as East Florida, and that west of it as West Florida. 
The latter country originally belonged to France and at various 
times was in her possession, but at other times in that of 
Spain. As the country contained neither gold nor silver it 
was considered almost valueless, and the rights of neither 
country were very clearly defined or understood. 

In 1763 Spain ceded both Floridas to England, who in 1783 
ceded them back to Spain. The western portion beyond the 
Perdido river, which now separates Florida, on the west, from 
Alabama, had been claimed by France as belonging to Louisi- 
ana, and our Government, a few years after its purchase of that 
Province, claimed and took possession of it, and so brought our 
boundary line down, west of the Perdido, to the Gulf of 
Mexico. This act of ours in a disputed territory came near 



14 How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 

bringing on a war with Spain. By this treaty of 1820 we 
obtained all of Florida, and all claims of Spain along the Gulf 
of Mexico to the river Sabine, separating Texas from what is now 
Louisiana, and at the same time we surrendered to Spain what- 
ever claims we had under the Louisiana Purchase to territory 
between the Sabine and the Rio Grande river, now the State 
of Texas. Texas at this time was a part of Mexico and with 
it belonged to Spain. The boundary line between the United 
States and the Spanish Provinces, as settled by this treaty, com- 
menced at the mouth of the Sabine river, thence up that stream 
to latitude 32°, thence due north to the Red river, thence fol- 
lowing that stream to longitude 100°, thence due north to the 
Arkansas river, thence to its source in the Rocky Mountains, 
thence north to the 42°, and thence on that parallel to the 
Pacific Ocean. We ceded to Spain all our claims west and 
south of this boundary, and Spain to us all her claims east and 
north of it. We surrendered enough of our Louisiana Purchase, 
being in the Valley of the Mississippi, to have made a State as 
large as Colorado. This is easily seen by tracing a line along 
the water-shed south of the Red river, thence to a few miles 
east of Santa Fe, and thence along the Rocky Mountains to 
the 42nd parallel. But as we got from Spain her claim to the 
Oregon country, we were not the losers by the exchange. 

THIRD ENLARGEMENT, DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF OREGON. 

(280,425 Square Miles.) 

Our right to the country on the Pacific Coast, from Cali 
fornia north to the British line, rests on the following claims: 



Hoxo Our Domain Was Enlarged. 15 

A Spanish vessel in 1592 discovered and sailed along the coast. 
As shown above, this claim was made over to us by Spain, 
it lying north of latitude 42°. In 1792 Captain Robert Gray, 
of Boston, Massachusetts, an American citizen, discovered and 
sailed up a large river, which from the name of his vessel he 
called "The Columbia." William Cullen Bryant, in his im- 
mortal poem, " Thanatopsis " (written in 1812), refers to this 
then far off river under its other name " The Oregon." 

"Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
t Save his own dashings." 

In 1804-6 Lewis and Clarke, in charge of an exploring 
expedition sent out by the United States Government, ascended 
the Missouri river nearly to its source, thence passed over the 
Rocky Mountains and down the Columbia river and its branches 
to the Pacific Ocean, whence they returned to the Missouri 
river and home. Almost the whole distance over which they 
journeyed, after leaving the Mississippi river, was an unknown 
wilderness. On their route they met tribes of Indians who 
never before had seen a white man. In 1811, as narrated by 
Washington Irving in his "Astoria," John Jacob Astor, a 
merchant of New York City, sent one expedition overland and 
another by sea to the mouth of the Columbia river, where they 
established the fur trading post of Astoria, which was the first 
settlement in this vast region. 

At the time of our treaty with England, in 1783, we 
had no possessions west of the Lake of the Woods and the Mis- 
sissippi river, and consequently no boundary line, but by the 



16 How Our Domain Was ^Enlarged. 



treaties of 1818 and 1842 the line was run from the north- 
western point of the Lake of the Woods (latitude 49° 23' 55", 
longitude 95° 14' 38") due south to latitute 49° and thence due 
west to the Rocky Mountains. These treaties took from us 
a portion of the Mississippi Valley north of Montana, but gave 
to us the Red River Valley, the "No. 1 Hard Wheat" belt of 
Minnesota and Dakota. As the Oregon country was yet in 
dispute, this boundary was not extended to the Pacific Ocean. 
Our claim ran along the coast north from California to 54° 40', 
where we touched the Russian Possessions, now Alaska Ter- 
ritory. 

The English had as valid claims, and of the same charac- 
ter as ours, which would have taken in all of Oregon and prob- 
ably California had they pressed them, but they only claimed 
to the mouth of the Columbia river. I have before me a map, 
dated 1777, attached to Robertson's America, in which the 
country north of the Peninsula of California is named "New 
Albion," and the Bay of San Francisco, the "Harbor of Sir 
Francis Drake," the English navigator, who, in 1578, had dis- 
covered and sailed into it. 

After a good deal of blustering on our part and on the 
part of England, we both, in 1846, showed our good sense by 
dividing the country between us, on the line of 49 degrees, from 
the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Thus, through these 
various sources, we became possessed of, what is now, Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, the western portion of Montana, and a 
part of Wyoming. 



How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 17 

FOURTH ENLARGEMENT, TEXAS AND OUR MEXICAN PURCHASES. 

(924,260 Square Miles.) 

Texas had for several years been filling up with emigrants 
from the United States. Difficulties sprang up between them 
and the Mexican Government, resulting in their seceding from 
Mexico in 1835, and setting up an independent republic, which 
in 1845 applied for admission and was annexed to the United 
States. As Mexico still claimed Texas as a part of her 
territory, this act on our part led to a war between us and 
Mexico. At its close, in 1848, we purchased of Mexico, for 
$15,000,000, what is now the State of California and nearly all 
that other portion of Mexico lying north of the present bound- 
ary between the two republics, and extending from the Pacific 
Ocean to Texas, and including what claims she might have to 
that State. In 1853 we bought an additional strip of land, 
that south of the Gila (He-la) river in Arizona for $10,000,000, 
which brought our southern boundary line to where it now is. 

This whole purchase, besides California and Texas, includes 
Nevada, Arizona, Utah, a part of Wyoming, a large part of 
Colorado, New Mexico, the southwest corner of Kansas, and the 
Pan-Handle of Indian Territory. In order to get at the real 
cost of this purchase, we must further add that of an unnec- 
essary war, in blood, suffering, and treasure, and to that what 
we paid to Texas, in 1S50, for her visionary claim to a large 
portion of New Mexico, $10,000,000. It is asserted that we 
sacrificed the lives of more than 25,000 of our own people and 
paid from $130,000,000 to $150,000,000 from our treasury. 



18 How Our Domain Was Enlarged. 

It is true we kept Texas, but as she reserved for herself all of 
her public land, we have had nothing from her to reimburse us 
for what she cost us. 

FIFTH ENLARGEMENT, THE ALASKA PURCHASE. 

(577,390 Square Miles.) 

In 1867 we purchased from Russia the vast region along 
the North Pacific, and extending to the Arctic Ocean, now the 
Territory of Alaska. For this we paid $7,200,000. It is 
claimed that our receipts from the leasing of the right to kill 
seals on the Alaska islands has fully paid the interest on this 
large amount. Alaska has also cod and salmon fisheries, seem- 
ingly inexhaustible; and vast forests of cedar, fir and kindred 
trees; and doubtless great mineral wealth in her mountains. 
These, even if she never becomes an agricultural state, will draw 
thousands of hardy, enterprising people into her territory, and 
will justify a purchase, the wisdom of which at the time was so 
seriously doubted. 

Thus by discovery, by annexation, but chiefly by purchase, 
has the United States in so short a period of time covered with 
her territory so large a portion of North America, and through 
the immense population she has drawn hither taken her place 
in the very front rank of the nations of the earth. 



Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 19 

In concluding our Historical Sketch it will be of interest 
to every American citizen to trace the causes of the rapid 

INCREASE OF POPULATION 

which made safe and possible these repeated enlargements of 
our domain. When in 1S03 the United States Minister to 
France, Robert R. Livingston, was, in connection with James 
Monroe, negotiating for the purchase of Louisiana, he wrote that 
"the United States will not for one hundred years make any 
settlements west of the Mississippi river." Let us look for a 
moment, and see if he was not fully justified at the time in his 
strange assertion. 

In 1803 not one of the States was densely populated, 
though the settlement of some of them dated back nearly 200 
years. Very large portions of several of the larger States, 
notably New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, were still vast 
solitudes. Three States had recently been formed in the Valley 
of the Mississippi, viz: Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, and 
it was a very reasonable supposition that it would require at 
least one half of the century to fill up these new States in the 
wilderness of "The Far West." 

South of Tennessee to Florida, and northwest of Ken- 
tucky and Ohio, stretching hundreds of miles to the distant 
British line, there was nearly an unbroken wilderness: dense 
woodlands, the abode of countless wild beasts, and vast 
prairies, over which roamed immense herds of buffalo, and 
quiet rivers, bearing on their smooth surface the light canoe of 



20 Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 

the treacherous savage, and anon the flat-boat of the hardy 
pioneer as he floated the scant produce of his few tilled acres 
to the distant market. With all of these difficulties to over- 
come on the east side of the Mississippi, it is no wonder that 
so wise a man as Chancellor Livingston should write, eighty- 
four years ago, " The United States will not for one hundred 
years make any settlements west of the Mississippi. " But what 
a change the eighty-four years have wrought! Did the world 
ever before, in so brief a time, see so marvellous a change? 
"Truth is stranger than Fiction," and the tongue which in the 
Orient told the wonderful Tales of the Arabian Nights is 
silenced by that which tells of the stirring deeds and the won- 
derful transformations of these eighty-four years of our Western 
History. The wolves and the bears, the elk and the buffalo, 
and the dreaded red men, have all disappeared. The flat-boat 
and the canoe served their purposes and are gone. The mighty 
forests, tree by tree, were felled long ago by the woodman's 
axe, and forest and prairie land for years have yielded rich 
harvests to feed the hungry peoples of the Old World. Where 
were the rude villages of the Indians, now are towns and cities 
and great business marts. And over all the then " waste, 
howling wilderness," prevails to-day the highest type of Christ- 
ian civilization, and all of these things have happened since 
that venerable, white-haired friend of yours was an infant. 

But it is not on the east side of the river only that these 
wonderful changes have been going on, for long years ago the 
same tide of population, carrying the same civilization, crossed 
the Mississippi river, and has been ever since sweeping on 



Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 21 

toward the west, wave following wave in quick succession. It 
reached the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase, crossed 
the mountains, rolled down their rugged passes into the valleys 
on the sunset slope of the continent, and paused not till it 
touched the shores of the far-ofl" Pacific. Before the hundred 
years shall have expired, of which Mr. Livingston wrote, 
even distant Alaska, from present indications, will be dotted 
with churches and school houses and tens of thousands of happy 
homes. In these successive purchases of immense territory 
our statesmen have planned better than they knew, for they 
were but instruments in the hands of the All-Father, who was 
preparing the way for the rapid establishment of a Land of 
Kefuge and of Plenty for his oppressed children of all the 
nations of the earth. 

THERE WERE MANY THINGS WORKING IN HARMONY 

which made possible this rapid increase of population in the 
new territories. I will mention first, our form of Government, 
which, as Lincoln so grandly said, is "Of the People, by the 
People and for the People." This has had a peculiar attraction 
to the thinking men of what are called the lower classes of 
European society. The thought, that their children could at 
little or no expense be well educated, and might even reach the 
highest positions in the land, has been an incentive to thousands 
of poor people to sunder home ties and brave the dangers of 
sea and wilderness. The temp>erate climate of our land, the 
fertility of its soil, the easy access to its markets, and leyond 
these- the wise policy our Government has pursued in dis- 
posing of its ivide domain, have all had their influence in 



22 Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 

drawing hither myriads of people from the u Old World." 
Land, from the organization of the Government, has been 
systematically and rapidly surveyed, and, through the larger 
portion of the time, sold in small parcels at a very low figure, so 
that the very poorest man could buy at as cheap a rate his 
forty acres, as the rich proprietor could his square miles of 
land. Then came the new departure under the Homestead 
Law, giving 160 acres to every actual settler on the Public 
Lands. I am a little disposed to question, however, the wisdom 
of the later laws by which beside his Homestead farm he could 
obtain at a trifling cost from 160 to 320 acres more. While 
this has been of benefit financially to many thousands of people, 
far more, who might have obtained a Homestead, will be pre- 
vented, because very soon all the good farming lands held by 
the Government will be gone. 

Then even the immense Land Grants have proved of great 
benefit to the country; inducing the building of Railroads 
through the wilderness and making possible its rapid settle- 
ment. This will be readily seen by comparing the Western 
maps of but thirty years ago with those of to-day. When, 
in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was made, there were neither 
steamboats nor railroads known. The immigrants of those 
days moved, as we occasionally see them now, in covered 
wagons, wife and children and household goods inside of each, 
while the men folks led or drove their few cattle along behind. 
Thus they traveled hundreds of miles from their comfortable 
Eastern homes, climbing the rough mountains and following 
down their valleys, and with axe in hand often hewing paths 



Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 23 

through the tangled woodlands. In this manner, after many 
weary weeks, they reached what was to be the home or the 
grave of them and their household, in some drear forest. This, 
had then to be felled, tree by tree, to make a log house for a 
home, and to let the sunlight reach the ground, where, between 
the stumps, they were to plow and to plant. One can readily 
see how slowly a distant land would fill up when the only 
mode of reaching it was by the emigrant wagon. 
The first step in 

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 

was, when, in 1806, Congress appropriated money to build 
National Roads, making it easier for the immigrants to move 
over the mountains and through the forests with their heavily 
laden wagons. In 1807 Kobert Fulton, after many discourage- 
ments and much ridicule, succeeded in making the first practi- 
cable Steamboat, "The Clermont." With this he went from 
New York City to Albany and back at the rate of five miles 
per hour. He afterward wrote: "The morning I left New 
York there were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who 
believed the boat would ever move one mile an hour." In 1812 
he, in connection with Mr. Livingston, built "The Orleans," at 
Pittsburg, Pa. , which was the first steamboat on the Western 
waters. In 1818 the first lake steamer, "Walk-in-the- Water," 
ran regularly, through Lake Erie, to Detroit and back to Buffalo, 
and steamboats were rapidly increasing in number on both 
Eastern and Western rivers. But it was not till 1838 that 
steamships were perfected so as to be depended on for ocean 
navigation, and even when the first one was successfully cross- 



24 Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 

« 

ing from England to New York City, a celebrated Old-World 
scientist, Rev. Dr. Lardner, was lecturing and proving con- 
clusively that such a voyage was a scientific impossibility. 

While improvements in steam navigation had been going 
on, and boats were plying to and fro on the lakes and rivers of 
the West, the National and some of the State Governments 
were trying to solve the problem of connecting the Western 
waters with the seaboard by Canals. Governor DeWitt Clin- 
ton, of New York, after years of hard work, amid unceasing 
ridicule, had the pleasure, in 1825, of seeing the waters of Lake 
Erie mingling with those of the Hudson river through the Erie 
Canal. This was three hundred and sixty-three miles in length, 
built largely through a wilderness. When completed it was 
hailed as a great success, and well it might be, for it soon made 
New York City the commercial emporium of the country. If 
you pass over the New York Central Railroad in the summer 
season you will see the boats, on this old canal, moving at a 
snail-like pace through the green fields, while you are whirling 
along at 30 miles per hour, and you will wonder how your 
grandfather ever thought canaling a rapid mode of travel. 
The wits of the day had, as they thought, a good time in ridi- 
culing Fulton and Clinton, but they and their witticisms are 
both forgotten, while these truly great men have been immor- 
talized as benefactors of their race, and their grateful country- 
men have given the honored names of Fulton and Clinton to 
streets and avenues and to counties, towns and cities. 

The next and greatest advance step was the employment of 
Steam for land travel and traffic. The primary object of this 



Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 25 

was to shorten the time between the navigable waters of the 
East and the navigable waters of the West, and to do away in 
a measure with the necessity for canals. But with the settle- 
ment of the country, the railroads were extended from city to 
city, irrespective of their situation on navigable waters, till 
the railroad has not only largely superseded the canal, but in 
.many parts of the country it now successfully competes with 
the river in the carriage even of heavy freight. In the "New 
Countries" the railroad worked a complete revolution by chang- 
ing the current of traffic and travel, for the natural outlet of the 
whole Mississippi valley from the Alleghany to the Rocky 
Mountains is by the way of New Orleans to the Gulf of 
Mexico. Down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers one would in 
those early days meet a constant succession of flat-boats and 
steamboats bearing to that distant market the produce of the 
West. After the completion of the Erie Canal in New York 
State, canals were built in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, connects 
ing the navigable waters of the Mississippi Valley with the 
Great Lakes, the Erie Canal and the Hudson River. A canal 
was also built by which Philadelphia, with a portage over the 
mountains, reached the Ohio river at Pittsburg, and so shared 
with New York, in the trade which otherwise would all have 
gone to New Orleans. This system of canaling was not only 
slower but more expensive than the old method of simply 
floating down stream, for it necessitated several changes, with 
the rehandling of freight each time. But when the railroads 
came, they remedied all this. 

A railroad is virtually a navigable river, having its many 



26 Causes of the Rapid Increase in Population. 

branches, navigable to their very source, each pouring its stream 
of trade into the main river, which bears it on and on till it 
reaches the distant seaport. To-day, from the Atlantic west 
across the Mississippi valley to the Pacific, there are many of 
these railroads, over which flows constantly to and fro, in 
summer and in winter, an ever increasing stream of travel and of 
traffic. The first Railroad Company organized in America was 
the Baltimore and Ohio, which was chartered by the Maryland 
legislature in 1827. The cars at first were moved by horse 
power, but in 1829, Peter Cooper, of New York City, so well 
known in later years as a philanthropist, built for this company 
the first locomotive made in America; it moved at the rate of 
eighteen miles in an hour. In 1830 there were but 23 miles of 
railroad in the United States; on January 1, 1887, there were 
136,977 miles. 

The successful inventoin of the Steamship in 1838 opened 
a new era in ocean navigation. The voyage was very much 
shortened in time, and the vessels were made so large that on 
each trip they carried several hundred passengers. As emi- 
grants could be herded by hundreds in the steerage, the vessel 
owners were enabled to make very low rates for passage, and 
in consequence, ever since, there has been an unceasing exodus 
from European ports to this country. 

In the meantime railroads were being built in every direc- 
tion through our western country, often scores and hundreds 
of miles in advance of population. Some of these railroad 
companies owned millions of acres of fertile lands, the gift of 
the Government to them. These roads had special agents 



Our Country' *s Future. 27 

throughout Europe, as did several of the Western States, who 
were constantly circulating printed information in the various 
languages of Europe and collecting and forwarding colonies as 
well as individuals and families to this country. As soon as 
they arrived at our seaports the railroad companies forwarded 
them at very low rates to their chosen homes in the Far West. 
To-day the immigrant can be brought from Europe and set 
down in the Western Territories, in less time and with not a 
tithe of the hardships a New England family endured, in coming 
from its Eastern home to the Northwest Territory at the be- 
ginning of this century. 



OUR COUNTRY'S FUTURE. 

These have been the main causes which have made possi- 
ble our rapid increase in Population and Territory in so short a 
time. The same causes are still operating in Europe and 
America, while our railroads in the aggregate are adding hun- 
dreds of miles each year to their already great extent, and open- 
ing up for settlement new sections of the country. Yet it is 
only since the close of the Civil War that the Southern States 
have begun to realize their great possibilities. The "Old 
South" was killed during the war, but a "New" and grander 
"South" has risen from her ashes. A veritable giantess is she, 
thrilled with a new life and endowed with a masculine energy 
rivaling that of the great Northwest. As she is not weighed 



28 Our Country's Future. 

down by the incubus of slavery, as was the Old South, she is 
already pushing, with a wonderful vigor, through the rapid 
development of her various industries, towards the very front 
rank in national progress. She is extending her railroads into 
her undeveloped territory, rapidly filling it with an industrious 
population and opening it to the markets of our common 
country. One is bewildered when he attempts to forecast the 
future of our nation from such a past! Yet, if no great catas- 
trophe overtakes our land, it is a mathematical certainty that by 
the time of the Second Centennial of the Organization of the 
"Northwest Territory," there will be within the present limits 
of the United States of America at least 240,000,000 of people 
or our present population twice doubled. If within the 
next twenty-five years there are no further enlargements of our 
domain, every acre of public land will have been disposed of, 
and in even a shorter time the Land Grant Railroads will have 
sold every acre they received from Government. Before the 
expiration of the century, farms will have been divided and re- 
divided among families, till eighty acres will be considered a 
large farm and every acre of arable land will be carefully tilled. 
The United States will then lead in agricultural, manufac- 
turing, commercial and mining industries, and will have become 
the financial center of the whole business world. By her 
grand system of common school education, enforced by com- 
pulsory laws, every native born person, of sound mind, will have 
at least a rudimentary education; and her leading colleges will 
have become the great universities of the world, each num- 
bering its students by the thousand. Her interior and coasts 



Our Country' 1 's Future. 29 

wise cities, east and west, north and south, which are railway 
terminal points, will have increased in population far beyond the 
most sanguine expectation of their present inhabitants. And 
where, in addition to their advantages as receiving and distrib- 
uting centers, they have become great manufacturing points, 
they will embrace, within their corporate limits, more square 
miles of actually improved territory, holding larger populations, 
'than any cities of ancient or modern times. 

If you have not given this matter a serious thought I have 
no doubt you will think me very visionary. But if a century 
ago any one had predicted the wonderful changes which we 
now see to have taken place, would he not with much more 
reason have been charged with being visionary ? Take all the 
conditions of the country as I have described them; then re- 
member that ours is a country capable of supporting an im- 
mense population; and that railroad facilities for reaching 
cheaply and quickly every part of the land are yearly increasing. 
Then look at our marvellous growth in the past century, when, 
through a large portion of the time, the conditions were not 
nearly so favorable for growth as now. In 1787 our whole 
population was only about 3,750,000, in 1887 our estimated 
population i| 60,000,000, so we have doubled just four times in 
one hundred years, averaging once in every twenty-five years. 
Our last census was in 1880. Our population then was 
50,155,783; thirty years before, in 1850, it was but 23,191,074. 
If we could double four times in this century (which of course 
is impossible) our population in 1987 would be 960,000,000. 
So I think you will consider me quite moderate when I predict 



30 Our Country 9 s ^Future. 

240,000,000 for our population within our present territorial 
limits in 1987. Doubtless before that time, by friendly and 
mutually advantageous legislation, we will have "acquired the 
whole continent from the Isthmus of Panama to the Arctic 
Ocean, and all the various peoples will speak the one language, 
live under the one flag, and be a part of that one Government 
which is "Of the People, by the People, and for the People." 

Perchance you to-day have held in your arms a child who 
will live to see these predictions all fulfilled. 

Chicago, January, 1887. 



This little book is published for those who either lack the time 
for study or the means to purchase the different volumes con- 
sulted in its preparation. 

The book will be found to contain a great deal of information, 
in a condensed, yet readable, form, which is of interest to every 
American citizen and which should be made familiar to both 
parents and children of every intelligent household. As to its need 
read the following: 

From Century, February, 1887, page 614: 

(Edw. Atkinson, on "The Relative Strength and Weakness of 
Nations.") 

" It is a singular fact, that there appears to be no Historical 
School Atlas in use in this country in which the several additions 
to the territory of the United States are pictured and described; 
hence very few persons realize the vast importance and extent 
of the Louisiana purchase," etc. 

We will mail as follows to any address in the United States, 
on receipt of price: 

One copy $0.25 

Twelve copies 2.50 

Twenty-five copies 5.00 

Lonrir Publishing Company, 

158 and 160 S. Clark St., Chicago. 




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